Theology for the Artist. Introduction -History -Portfolio -Current

Theology for the Artist

Introduction

- History

- Portfolio

- Current

Introduction

Three reasons for accepting my invitation to speak:

1. To acknowledge some of the real tension we experience as Christian artists residing between world and church

2. To share things from my personal, professional and theological experiences that have helped my find my balance

3. To ultimately help you, as young Christian artists in training, become better equipped to address you art and faith and thrive as artists and designers in the world

Finding Affirmation and Empowerment in the ChurchFinding affirmation and empowerment as Christians artist

is notalways so easy to come by…

1. Much of this is due to the history of the church

2. Catholic vs. Protestant Attitudes Towards the Arts and Culture

3. American Revivalism and Adventism

Finding Affirmation and Empowerment in the ChurchIts relatively easy to find validation when working

specificallywithin the church context…

1. It is a respectable thing to work for the church

2. However, church work is not for everyone

3. The amount of room given for individualism and expression can feel limited in the church context - it takes a certain amount of diplomacy and patience to work within the church context

Finding Affirmation and Empowerment in the ChurchAlso, there has been a sort of revival of the arts in the

Protestant and Evangelical context in the last decade…

1. A lot of this revival is rooted in the transformation of Christian worship

2. In some ways, this can often be seen as a very commercialized phenomena

3. Nevertheless, there are legitimate and noticeably positive shifts towards the arts in popular Christianity

Finding Affirmation and Empowerment in the ChurchAnd, from my experiences at Fuller Seminary (and the

diversity found there), Adventism is not necessarily the most hostile

context when it comes to support of the arts

1. SONscreen Festival

2. LSU’s Noteworthy Alumni

3. The wonderful facilities of the Art Department at LSU are hard to come by!

Finding Affirmation and Empowerment in the ChurchBut the real challenge many of face comes when we set

out to make an impact in the world outside the church.

1. Church work is not for everybody

2. It is limited in resources and opportunity

3. Church work came seem very confining in terms of the value of personal expression and the confrontational aspects of art making

4. So, then, for numerous reasons that exist for us to practice our art making in broad culture, how do we navigate both our faith and culture in a redemptive way?



One of the reasons why I so value my one year at LSU back in

1987 is that it made me remain aware and sensitive to this tension

between my faith and art making


The real tension between art making and faith is foundationally a

tension between the church and popular culture. As artists, we

are…

- …often immersed in areas of culture viewed suspiciously by orthodoxy/church tradition

- …apt to find resonance and beauty in things tradition sometimes finds questionable

- …supportive and in embrace of popular culture (music, design, fashion, and of course painting)

- …often confronted with feelings of displacement in the church


As mentioned, this tension for me began with my first year of art

instruction at La Sierra back in 1987…

- Not an issue of faculty, per se, but of the community surrounding an Adventist institution

- I found I immediately began to compartmentalize my art making much in the same way I compartmentalized my life between my church and the rest of the week

- Art became a sort of indulgence I could not resist because I loved it so much




I saw the last leg of U2’s Rattle and Hum Tour during my freshman year at LSU…20 years ago!

- I traveled all the way to Tempe Arizona with my cousins and their friends who were all seniors and all village residents. I felt so cool…It was my first “road trip”.

- I rationalized the validity of making this trip to my father by asserting Bono was a Christian and U2’s music had a spiritual component

- My older friend and former student at LSU Art Department, and my Sabbath School instructor at the time, tried to convince me that I was merely rationalizing away the obvious fact that U2 was, in the end, just another rock and roll band


But I couldn’t shake the nagging fact that I had actually meant

what I said…

- In many ways, this tension was representative of the broader tensions I continued to carry in me throughout my years at Art Center and later in the entertainment field

- That is not to say that I found all of the arts and popular culture to be spiritual or redemptive

- It is to say, however, that I was and still am constantly confronted by what seems unmistakably spiritual and redemptive in spite of the junk out there


In fact, some of my most spiritual experiences continued to

emerge from the arts and culture clearly outside the context of

Christianity and church

- In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion this is why we choose to study and make art - that art and design and music and film lend themselves powerfully towards transcendence

- I am sure that while our interests might all be very different, we can all cite instances in which we were powerfully confronted with the beautiful and the uplifting and the transcendent through the arts


Some examples from the arts and popular culture that have

continued to provide such experiences for me personally include…


The paintings of Mark Rothko




Rothko Chapel

Houston, Texas


The art of Sue Coe


The architectureof Tadao Ando




The music of Brian EnoandHarold Budd


The music of sigur rós


The music of Sufjan Stevens


The films of P.T. Anderson


The films of Alexander Payne


Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto Del

Fauno)


Ultimately, the nagging questions that keep arising out of my

powerful encounters with the arts and popular culture is one that

wonders how God could be found in all of this? And is this really

something spiritual I am encountering?

- None of the examples I have shown carry an explicit component of faith in regards to any religion including Christianity

Its likely we all experience some of the same tension in our personal encounters as well…


My personal experience of coming to terms with this tension was

found in studying theology…

- Its fair to say this tension actually helped move me towards a graduate degree in theology

- After 10 years in the video game industry, the tension for me became something I had to confront

- This is not to say that I think all artists need to also study theology - but I do find I am dying to share my encounters in theology with fellow artists in the hopes they might find affirmation as I have


As I get into more of theology for the artist, let me start with a set

of quotes from very diverse sources:

"We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are

for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal...

We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal

truth”

Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb - 1943


"The human person, therefore, is the event of a free, unmerited

and forgiving, and absolute self-communication of God.”

Karl Rahner


"Among the heathen are those who worship God ignorantly, those

to whom the light is never brought by human instrumentality, yet

they will not perish. Though ignorant of the written law of God,

they have heard His voice speaking to them in nature, and have

done the things that the law required. Their works are evidence

that the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts, and they are recognized as the children of God."

Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages pg.638


What do these three quotes have in common?

- They all suggest that concept of truth seeking, spirituality and morality are not exclusive to the confines of Christianity (or Adventism) but, rather, part of what it means to be human

- They all suggest that redemptive dynamics can be expressed in way that are not explicitly religious or Christian

- They all give room for God to speak and reveal God’s own self in powerful ways outside the church


In Systematic Theology, these quotes relate to the doctrine of

revelation - or, how God reveals himself to the world. And this is

the first theological point I want to make today…

- While church tradition might argue that God is largely absent or ignored outside the church, even a prophet we call our own suggests otherwise

- Even the Apostle Paul argues that Scripture is not the only way to encounter God but that we also encounter God through our consciences and through our interaction with nature (Romans 1:20, Romans 2:14,15)


The second theological point I want to express is that we need to

reconsider the anthropology and ontology we hold to as Christians - or in other words, we need to reconsider what

it means to be human and a created being

- Adventism holds to a more holistic view of human existence

- Karl Rahner suggests even more powerfully that human beings are, by nature, spiritual

- This is actually a very Biblical view of existence


In contrast, much of Protestant and Evangelical orthodoxy suggests that we are much more divided within ourselves

as humans

- Classic Protestantism suggests we are totally depraved as sinful humans and unable to do good without explicitly encountering Jesus

- This is not to say that there is no merit in this view of human existence, but it is to say that to see humanity only in this way would be unfortunate


Before all of this gets too complicated and heady…what is the

real point here?

- What we are really talking about here is what it means to say we are created in the image of God - the imago dei

- From within our own context (White) as well as others in the wider Christian community, there is the suggestion that while we are fallen and sinful, we are still able to reflect the image of God we have been created with and sometimes in powerful ways

- And, there is the suggestion that this persistent reflection of the image of God - however flawed it might be - can be found not only in religion but in the broad human experience


These two ideas together…

- that God reveals himself robustly outside the walls of the church as well as within

- that all of humanity, by design, is able to resonate and reflect some of the image of God despite our sinfulness

…present a powerful challenge to the hostility towards culture

held traditionally by Christianity


In turn, these ideas also powerfully affirm the role of the artist as

Christian…

- They affirm the artists’ abilities to sense and see God in places many others fail to see God

- As a result, the artist is able to paint a picture of God that is powerfully more diverse and bigger than others can

- Also, our perspective as artists makes us potentially more able to see both the beauty and the horror of the human condition


In short, when considering the theology presented here, your

roles as artists takes on an immediate and necessary significance

in both the church and the world because of the visionary abilities

you possess

These ideas about God and humanity have redeemed my choice

to become an artist in ways I could never have dreamed

And the more I contemplate our special calling as artists, the

more I realize that the role of the artist - more than anything else -

is that of a prophet!


We often equate the purpose of prophets as being that of future-telling but…

- The Biblical notion of a prophet is more focused on the ability to break down the true nature of the times at hand

- There is no shortage of imagination and creativity in prophetic expression

- Despite the urgent and apocalyptic tone of the prophetic imagination, the ultimate message is that of hope

- God’s work through the prophetic imagination is not just to reveal sin, but to affirm the beautiful potential for redemption


- As artists, you have the God given ability to see things others can’t see so easily

- As artists you have the imagination and creativity to be visionary

- As artists, you have the ability to combine word and image, logic and emotion, and burn ideas in the hearts and minds of people in ways others cannot

- As artist, you have access to a language that is able to cross boundaries and barriers of thought and culture

- There is no shortage of imagination, and creativity in the Biblical texts - so embrace your role to manifest this aspect of the human experience through the gifts God has put into you

Parting Thoughts…

- Thoughts on how to approach your role as artist-prophet…

- How about your thoughts?

Documents

Theology for the Artist. Introduction -History -Portfolio -Current